Floridians Want Rudy Versus Hillary

The Associated Press reports that a survey conducted by the Quinnipiac Polling Institute found that former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was the favorite among Republicans and U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton were Floridians top choices for the 2008 presidential race.

From California Yankee.

Early and absentee ballots give Kerry 11% lead

In a very large turnout, Senator Kerry took a 55% - 44% lead over President Bush. The second printout should be out in an hour. If it holds, and most observers expect it to, that puts paid to the thought of the Republicans taking Hawai’i’s four electoral votes.

Voter Turnout

Voter turnout is still the big story in todays polling. Unprecedented turnout, according to the local coverage. The races are still a toss up at 9:25pm, but the Republicans are still voicing optimism - but the race looks like its leaning toward Kerry.

Report from the hustings

10:45 a.m. I just got back from my polling place. At a rough guess, there are about 2,500 registered voters in my precinct, and I was the 517th to vote (using an optical scanner…there’s one touch screen machine, but it’s primarily meant for those who can’t use the SAT-style ballots the rest of us use). Poll workers told me they’d had a surge this morning during the rush hour, but it had slowed down since then. All the booths were in use, and there was a steady flow of voters coming in, but no crowds at that hour. Judging from facial expressions, people were taking it seriously, muddling through four proposed State Constitutional amendments and four City Charter amendments in order to make their choices for Honolulu’s mayor as well as the Federal positions. There were no sign-wavers within half-a-mile of the polling place on my way there, but on the way back a few had surfaced. Interestingly, they were stumping for our State Representative, not for national candidates.

High Turnout - Palpable Excitement

Most of the students in my classes today confirmed to me that this election was very important to them. The discussion wasn’t on who they were voting for, but rather how important they thought that it was to vote. There was almost universal agreement that the eligible were all going to vote. There were very, very few that seemed uninterested.

One way or another this election has energized people. Even if it is too soon to call the results of the overall election, I predict extraordinary voter turnout.

My vote, at 4:00pm in my own precinct was vote #674 in the paper ballot box. This doesn’t count the electronic tablet voting machine which had a non-stop line. The primary elections for this precinct had 955 voters. The vote count seems to be running quite high. Again, this is another indication of a very high turnout.

Very little poll activity yet...

The mostly-rural North Shore is quiet. The Republicans don’t seem to be as well organized as the Democratic machine here. Hundreds of campaign volunteers have lined roadways and neighborhood corners with Democratic placards and signs. The Republican effort is an order of magnitude less intense.

The polling places are nearly empty at 9:40am. To view, click here.

Weather not the issue for voter turnout...

The weather here in Hawaii isn’t expected to deter voters, but the surf conditions might. Surfline predicts fair-good conditions:

We’ll see how the day develops…

Meanwhile the radio waves have been saturated with both Bush and Kerry ads. Ads are popping up on virtually all stations. Even the ABC affiliate, conservative talk radio at AM 990 has been fair play for the Democratic dollar. This state has certainly become a battle ground.

Local station KWHE (channel 11) is currently having a discussion about the issues (11:00pm, Nov 1, “Don’t Abort Your Vote!”). To listen to the current discussion one would believe that a MAJOR issue is gay marriage. Hawaiians are typically very tolerant of homosexuality and alternate life styles. But the gay marriage debate has been a volatile issue here. If this becomes a referendum on gay marriage the state could tilt toward Bush.

The Democrats have had a lock on the Hawaiian legislature for the last 50 years. The recent election of a Republican Governor, Linda Lingle, has seemed to many a repudiation of the “old” way of doing business here. Saturation level radio ads from the Republican party have hyped this historic Democratic dominance and have attempted to associate it with corruption within the government (which is very believable to most Hawaiians). To the extent that these ads stick, then the state Republicans appear to be the anti-establishment party. The carry-over to the national election may be significant.

[Cross posted at North Shore Waves.]

Aloha from Hawai'i

You may have heard that we are suddenly a battleground state, and the two parties certainly think so. In mid-October the Hawai’i Poll showed Bush ahead with 43.3% to 42.6% for Kerry and 12% Undecided. (The mysterious Other got 2%). Another poll from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin taken about the same time showed Bush at 46%, Kerry at 45%, and 9% Undecided. This caught the local pols completely by surprise. Sure, we elected a Republican Governor two years ago, but she was the first member of her party who’d won that race since the 1950s, and nobody expected that that trend would continue.

The results of these polls have galvanized both parties. On Friday we saw Al Gore and Alexandra Kerry arrive to stump for Kerry, and last night Cheney made a quick stop to buck up the Republicans. In addition, our local TV stations have suddenly reaped a bonanza of political ad sales. I’ve seen ads from MoveOn, the RNC, the DNC, AFSCME and the Kerry campaign. Since we had not been thought to be “in play” until now, we’d only been seeing local political ads on our screens, mostly for the two House seats and one Senate seat, but also for the Honolulu Mayor’s race. Now we know what all the folks in Iowa, Michigan, Ohio and all the other swing states have been living with for months.

There has also been a sudden rise in “robo-calls,” those pre-recorded messages from national party luminaries. I got two from General Wes Clark yesterday and one from Rudy Giuliani on Saturday. We were already getting these for local races.

We had an early absentee voting period from October 19-30, and by all accounts roughly one in five voters took advantage of it to walk in and cast a ballot early. That should have an impact on the length of lines at polling places tomorrow, unless turnout is huge. I did not take advantage of that opportunity, so I’ll be reporting from the ground tomorrow. Given the time zones (we’re five hours behind the East Coast and two behind the West) and the fact that the polls don’t close till 6:00pm, we may be important for the electoral vote count, or we may be (as usual) inconsequential.

Cheney "Cooks Kerry's Goose" in Hawaii

Dick Cheney, the first major party candidate to stump in Hawaii, addressed a crowd of about 9,000 in Honolulu:

“If you want my opinion, John Kerry’s goose is cooked,” Cheney told hundreds of cheering supporters in this Republican stronghold, where voters at military bases backed George Bush 2-to-1 in the 2000 election.

Hawaii, normally a strong Democratic state, suddenly finds itself in the spotlight as a battleground state this year.